


Take What You Need (Take The Air That I Breathe)

by joidianne4eva



Category: Smallville
Genre: Lovecraftian, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 06:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8239204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joidianne4eva/pseuds/joidianne4eva
Summary: Names were important to people and Lex had learned to understand their significance from a young age.
Before he’d been Luthor, he’d been Lex, the name often accompanied by one of Clark’s shy smiles and even before that he’d been Alexander, his mother’s tiny prince.
All of that was before…before Superman consumed what had once been Clark, before the man that had once been his best friend became his enemy, before Clark forgot that he’d been the one to tell Lex that names didn’t matter.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the Monsterfest prompt - Lovecraft

Names were important to people and Lex had learned to understand their significance from a young age.

Before he’d been Luthor, he’d been Lex, the name often accompanied by one of Clark’s shy smiles and even before that he’d been Alexander, his mother’s tiny prince.

All of that was before…before Superman consumed what had once been Clark, before the man that had once been his best friend became his enemy, before Clark forgot that he’d been the one to tell Lex that names didn’t matter.

In the end it came down to Lex, to what he believed, what he’d wanted and he’d wanted Clark from the very start but he believed that he wasn’t a good man and Clark deserved better.

So Lex gave Clark the only other form of love he knew, he gave Clark everything except his body.

It was stupid, so stupid because Clark was young and the young never truly understood how much pain they could cause until it was too late.

And it had been too late…by the time Lex realized that love wasn’t always sacrifice, he’d given away too much of himself with too little thanks.

It was easy to lash out then because deep down he’d always been a Luthor and Luthors loved like a forest fire, consuming everything in their path and damaging what they couldn’t keep.

His mother had told him once that it was a coping mechanism, hurting the one you loved before they could hurt you. She said it was a cry for help.

Lex wondered if Clark had heard him crying for all of those years.

The thought didn't keep Lex from helping.

Just a nudge in one direction, a careless statement and suddenly people were flocking the Kent farm with orders because if Luthors were willing to eat Smallville produce then the rest of them could only scramble to keep up.

It hadn’t been difficult to funnel money into the tiny town, hiding his name behind smokescreens as he watched the place flourish.

It had been even easier to change the direction of his research because sometimes self-medication was the only thing that helped and Lex knew all about feeling hopeless.

Giving hope was a new experience though and one that was addictive in and of itself.

Watching the awe on the faces of the people like him, as they learned control, learned that they had a choice, could make names of their own was reward enough but he’d never give back the moment when the first subject called him Lex instead of Mr Luthor.

But he was still Luthor; he was still public enemy number one to more than one person, bolstered by the attacks from the Daily Planet and the constant raids from Superman.

He’d never be Lex to Clark again, he’d accepted that much but he’d never truly needed Clark to tell him who he was.

He still felt the ache of their separation like a lost limb but it hurt less after Lex stop letting it…it still hurt more than the bullet that ripped its way through his chest.

*O*

Human beings were, as a whole, obsessed with names. It was one of the things that separated them from other intelligent animals and a dog raised as a cat would often try to purr.

Clark Kent was no different.

There were many names that he’d been given over the years and they meant different things to him.

Clark was the child who Martha and Jonathan had taken into their house and raised as their son.

Kal-El was the son of Jor-El and his wife Lara-El, the child that they’d sent to another planet to ensure his survival while their world crumbled.

Superman was the hero who the world always turned to, a symbol of truth and justice.

Each name was important and each name was significant.

They painted the story of Clark Kent, coloured him in shades of red and blue.

But before Superman, before Clark Kent and even before Kal-El, there had been nothing.

It was a word that conveyed absence and lack but in the dark of space, at the edge of the absence of all things the nothingness breathed and at that very moment the spark that would be Kal-El flared to life within his mother’s womb.

As he grew people saw only what they needed and they named him accordingly, son, friend, lover but there was only one person who looked beyond his abilities and his quick smile to the darkness and that person had called him mine.

It made the nothingness pulse but the part of him that was Clark saw only the greed in Lex’s eyes, the ruthlessness and desire.

Long after Clark had named Lex his friend, he named him his enemy up until that moment.

Until blood arched from Lex’s chest and Lex was falling, falling but Clark wasn’t quick enough, he could only catch Lex’s body, not the breath leaving his lungs because he hadn’t been watching.

He hadn’t been listening.

They’d hurt each other so many times that Lex’s presence was like looking into the sun…it was just too much so Clark had stopped looking.

He didn’t know then that he would have been able to see the bullet even if he had been watching, he didn’t know that Lex’s enemies had planned for Superman and he didn’t care because Lex’s hand was pressed against the bloody wound piercing his chest before it fluttered across Clark’s face, smearing it red with his own blood and the world shattered as Lex’s heart stopped.

Because out in the dark of space and time the nothingness had felt a spark, a flicker of life not its own, like a tiny voice screaming into the void and the nothingness had answered even as it rearranged everything that it was.

It had named that voice, it had…it was…

*O*

After…that was how the world thought of the events that had happened, after Clark Kent had become Superman, after Superman had become something else, after the world had stopped turning.

After Lex Luthor had died in the arms of his most powerful enemy.

Lex didn’t remember after but being dead was apparently a logical excuse for lack of memory.

He didn’t need a memory to help him watch the footage of Clark’s frame bowing over his body, he didn’t need it to hear the man’s screams and he didn’t need it to watch as Clark’s body _changed._

The shooter didn’t even have a chance to scream but then again, neither did any of the others.

The footage was banned now, written off as a phenomenon, one that wasn’t meant to be understood because every single person who had witnessed the events of that day had lost something…for most of them it had been their lives and they were the lucky ones. The others inhabited the institutions that Lex had funded out of guilt because if he’d been smart enough to stay alive they might have…

The screen flickered and died in front of his eyes and Lex didn’t flinch as warm hands covered his even as something warmer brushed against his neck and arms before retreating.

Instead he let himself be pulled into Clark’s embrace, not turning even though he was the only one who could look at Clark, as he was now, without losing his sanity or maybe he’d lost it so long ago that he just didn’t notice its absence.

Clark made a sound, a low hum of something in a long dead language but Lex had heard it enough times to understand that it was supposed to be his name.

In the end he’d been right, he’d never be Lex to Clark again, he’d become something more.

The nothingness that had become Clark Kent had named him long before and that was the only name that mattered.


End file.
